Lucky charms, unlucky victims

Frauds, some extending to lakhs of rupees, lurk behind the antiques business

January 29, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 09:23 am IST

The love for antiques is nothing new. But when an antique object is said to have magic powers, some antique lovers resort to the most foolish of acts.

Frauds in the name of antiques and lucky charms are alive in and around the city, with two such incidents reported in the last two months. One saw a man paying Rs.50,000 for a pearl that has so far existed only in fables, and then getting thrashed by the people who promised him the same. Another incident saw a retired official shelling out Rs.30 lakh for a paraffin lamp bought from a scrap dealer.

When the Naruvamoodu police got a call last week from a local phone booth, alerting them about a fracas near Poovada, they didn’t expect the episode to turn out the way it did. There, they found a man from Thrissur, bruised after he and a jewellery appraiser friend reached a spot where they were supposed to be given a ‘Nagamanickam’, a mythological pearl believed to be found on the hood of a rare variety of cobras. He had paid Rs.50,000 but when the deal was to come through, the dealers turned the plates on him with a few hefty blows. The probe ended with the arrest of a five-member gang that eked out a livelihood by promising the non-existent pearl, collecting advances and then shooing away the client using force.

In December, a retired telecom official was the victim. The resident of Pattom believed a smooth talker, who said they could make a fortune by selling an antique petromax, which he would bring from Tamil Nadu. The ‘ancient lamp’, according to the fraudster, contained iridium and would fetch several millions. The victme dreamt of the millions, and doled out nearly Rs.30 lakh to get the lamp. The fraudster, meanwhile, bought an old lamp from a scrap-dealer in Malappuram, polished it, and said it was from the days of the British Raj.

However, the victim smelt a rat when attempts to sell the lamp failed. He approached the police, who nabbed the fraudster. Old church bells, petromax lamps with ‘inscriptions’ of the East India Company and which purportedly contain iridium that can pull rice because of its Radiant Iridium Power are all used for frauds.

Reporting by Dennis Marcus Mathew

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